Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

The Last day of NaBloPoMo posting for a couple of months at least. Hot diggity dog! I am going to be going out of town for a couple of weeks at the end of May/first of June. Heading back to the West Coast for a visit. Not too much really has been happening here, so I probably won't be posting every day. The garden is starting to come along, as are the weeds. Ellen is getting more and more active, as you might expect. The neighbor who was burned out is now living in WI, but we keep getting lots of visitors asking if he is selling this or that thing. Last night some guy came up to the door (Husband was out milking) and asked me if I knew anything about him and if he had a "mammoth jack" he'd sell. I'm thinking, "What? What kind of car jack is that, is it for a tractor or something?" But I didn't say anything, I just referred him to my husband. It wasn't until later that I thought; "Oh, neighbor breeds mules; it was a jackass he was w...

I Never Saw A Moor Emily Dickinson I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet I know how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spoke with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given.

Road...as in the one not taken. This is one of a few poems I have memorized by heart. It makes me ponder on just how our decisions in life affect our future; the roads we choose to take or avoid certainly affect our future, don't they? Sometimes I wonder what I would be doing if I had decided to stay in CA where I grew up instead of going to Oregon. Or what if I had married the first guy who'd proposed? (Thank God I didn't!) What if I HADN'T married current husband? One second thought; maybe these things are best left unpondered. THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by: Robert Frost (1874-1963) TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning e...

The Tiger William Blake. 1757–1827 Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder and what art Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee? Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Where's the grub? A couple of calves wanting some feed. They have been weaned by now and are in the weaner pen. I am running low on bottle calves and it's not looking like we will have any new ones any time soon. Tah for now.

G-59; one of our up and coming heifers. I think she has cute markings on her face. Husband worries about their udders; I worry about their markings. Ha. I hope this one turns into a good cow. You just never know.

Escape! It was a normal Thurday morning: The baby was down for her nap and I was cleaning up from lunch (we eat lunch at about 10:30 AM, due to the fact that we eat breakfast at 4 AM) and boiling some eggs for later use when the call came in. Husband answered; it was his aunt calling to say that she had opened her front door and there was a milk cow standing on her front walk, looking at her. (Our property borders theirs) There was one other cow standing around out front and three more out in their pasture. So before baby Ellen knew where she was I had her plucked from her crib, bundled in a coat and shoes and her father was whisking her up the road to Grandma's house for a while. Meanwhile I went out and got the white 4-wheeler and went up to asess the situation. Hubby was right behind me with his chainsaw and fence repair tools in the red 4-wheeler. We got up there and find hubby's 92 yr old grandfather out chasing the escapees up the road the opposite way we wanted them to g...

Shotgun Boogie Husband has the lyrics for this memorized, it's one of his favorite funny songs to sing. Sometimes to keep sane in the milk barn or doing menial chores around the dairy we sing stupid or funny songs to pass the time. I made a link to the YouTube recording of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing this; I dunno how to link it otherwise. I didn't even watch this whole thing as it takes soooooooooo long for this computer to download any video. This is the type of music that was quite popular around in this area back in the day, and it is still popular with many people. There is a discussion on gun control on this particular clip on YouTube, but you have to understand that hunting was a way of survival for many years here in the Ozarks, and to this day many people still depend on it. Due to conservation control there are so many whitetail deer around here that they keep extending hunting season for them in fall. There are doe seasons now too. Many people who hunt donate...

Bottle calf... I like the markings on this calf's face. It's kind of like a twisted hour glass or a tornado formation. She was just moved from an individual calf house to the group calf lot over by the barn. Our turkey hunter apparently didn't get anything yesterday as he was back again this morning, but he got rained out. We had a thunderstorm blow through and he must have gotten soaked, though husband said he might have ducked into one of the sheds down in the creek bottoms. Every day I think of trenchant things to write in here, but then when I get on the computer my mind goes blank. Husband's aunt killed a little copperhead in her front yard the other day, so I guess the snakes are out and about. They usually appear in April. The ticks are starting to get thick too. If there's one thing I dread in Missouri, it's all the little varmints that show up when the weather gets warm; snakes, ticks, chiggers, wasps...etc. Actually the non-venomous snakes don't bo...

Venison! It's turkey season, so our hunter is back to get his tom or two. He got a deer here this past fall so he brought us some venison sausage this morning. He's a good guy. We will share this with the rest of the family; it'd take us quite awhile to eat this much. We usually have a few slices on Sunday nights after milking, along with bread straight from the bread machine. The venison sausage is pretty good; it's cut with pork (I believe) to give it some substance. Last year he brought a couple that were cheese and jalapeno flavored. That was really good, but you had to eat it with bread or crackers; eat it straight and it was pretty hot. Hubby liked it though, which surprised me. He really is more of an adventurous eater than I'd thought he'd be. As far as turkey hunting is concerned our Hunter shouldn't have much problem getting one, really. I hear them gobbling from various locations down in the bottoms every morning during chores. He usua...

Cleopatra! Yea! Yea! She has a wicked gleam in her eye, but she's an OK kind of gal. She is a good example of a dehorning gone wrong...well, the problem was that her horns were allowed to grow way too big before dehorning so hubby wasn't able to get them shorn off down far enough. That kind of deforms them and they grow out weird. Usually cow horns grow up, not curl down like this. You have to watch really closely or they will grow into the skull.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see the blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. R...

It struck me last night that I could do more with the letter "Y" than a poem...as in: Y is it whenever I am on the phone, on the computer or sitting down anywhere in the house, including in the bathroom, the baby's radar immediately locates me and she comes squalling to be picked up and held? Y is it that whenever I have laundered my chore clothes we get a new calf that same day and I have to train her to bottlefeed and she spews milk all over my clean clothes? Y is it the computer always crashes when I am trying to comment on a blog, when I have just finished a long email, or when I am trying to post in my own blog? Y is it when I forget to change out of my good pants and I go to the milk barn that a cow lets loose with a major flying pie and gets me? Those are just some of the "Y" in life I have. In other news: Apparently I didn't scare the wrens away from the gourd; I saw one going in it yesterday with a beakful of nesting materials. Husband says they ar...

I almost forgot, I wanted to give a welcome to Cindy from PA, who just started her blog this month. I think mostly she's keeping in touch with family and friends, but drop by and tell her how cute her kids are: Gaggle of Gaskins Thanks.

P is for: Pippa's Song Robert Browning The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearl'd; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven- All's right with the world! A fitting poem for a spring morning, don't you think? Here is a picture of a birdnest gourd I grew year before last. Here it is popular to paint them and sell them, but I haven't exerted myself to paint any yet, though I have a bag full of them in the storage shed. I just put this one out on the clothes line to see what would happen. Last summer it was the abode of a nest of red wasps (nasty beasts). When I was hanging out the clothes sometimes I'd give the gourd a good spin and watch the wasps come boiling out and buzzing around-of course I'd make sure to be a good distance away. This year a wren started to build in the gourd, but the wind was so bad that I used some wire to stabilize the gourd a...

My tribute to the letter "Y." I like finding poems that have well-used sayings in them and wondering if they are the source of the saying. I just have never understood why it is a dog that has his day; why not a goose or an aardvark? Dunno. A footnote on Ellen's new phrase: Just yesterday after posting I noticed she was starting to draw out the "oo" sound of "who" and sounding like an owl: "Oooo is that?" she asks her dolls and books and banana at breakfast. "Oooo is that?" I laugh every time she does it. Yes, kids learning to talk are so much fun. I'll never forget my niece asking for "more crappers and cheese" when she was tiny. Too funny. Young and Old by Charles Kingsley When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away; Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. W...

I haven't been doing too well on keeping up with the NaBloPoMo theme for this month: letters. After visiting some of the other blogs I became embarrassed at my lack of imagination. So here is my tribute to the letter Q. It comes straight from the depths of my memories from my college days so you must forgive any mistakes in grammar or punctuation, especially since I can't get the tildes and upside down question marks and all in here because it's in Spanish; from poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. "Que es poesia?" dices mientras clavas En mi pupila tu pupila azul. "Que es poesia?" Y tu me lo preguntas? Poesia eres tu. A rough translation: "What is poetry?" you ask while cleaving In my eye your eye of blue. "What is poetry?" And you ask it of me? Poetry is you. In other news. Not too much to report really. However, Ellen is cracking me up. Most babies her age (just over 13 months) start off saying things like "Mama" or "Dad...

It was about 6 degrees below freezing this AM when I went out to do chores. Argh. The thermostat on the hot water heater in the milk barn went haywire last night and when hubby went in there it had turned the tank room into a sauna; everything was dripping. Apparently the thermo didn't kick off when it should have so the water kept getting hotter and hotter, it kicked the overload, kept sucking cold water in and boiling it off. We will be getting a new thermostat soon, very, very soon.

Here's a random photo I pulled from my photo files for lack of anything else interesting to post today. It's a shot of the new dump truck engine. For some reason this was really important to hubby that we get a pic of it so he could post it in some of his heavy equipment forums talks. I guess men do these things-those who are into big trucks and stuff. Oh, it was important because he wanted to brag about how clean the engine is...or at least WAS at the time he bought it. "Look bubba, no grease!" The milk man drools over this truck, says he wants it should hubby ever want to sell it. He has two big semi trucks that he drives to pick up milk and on the main one he has well over one million miles on it! Yikes! He'd turn this truck from a dump truck to a milk tanker. Sorry, I can't relate. A truck is a truck is a truck; metal and grease and gunk. Ha

Can you believe it?! It was just little flurries this morning, but still it's annoying. Monday the lows are supposed to be well below freezing; so much for fruit from the fruit trees and berries and such. Hubby says that's why he doesn't bother having fruit trees. I haven't had much time on computer lately, as I have said before, which is why I haven't visited and commented on other blogs or emailed anyone yet. After yesterday's depressing post here is something funny...well I thought it was funny. Yesterday morning I went out to do regular chores and saw hubby walking away from the barn; he had shut down the vacuum pump-closing up shop it would appear. I thought I was late, but apparently he was missing 10 cows. He'd had to wait 'til daylight to go find them. Off he took on the 4-wheeler. I went about my regular chores and directly I heard the 4-wheeler coming back, bringing up the rear. The stray cows were trotting ahead of him and it was funny...

Yes, the weather has been grumpy for the past few days. They are predicting we are supposed to get freezing, and well below freezing temps on Monday. Great. Happy Spring! But I guess the last frost date around here is in mid-April, I don't remember exactly. Anyway. On Wed we went up to get one of the downed calves. (The other one is already out in the hay shed) Hubby took the tractor and hip attachment thingy (I dunno the official name for it.) and chains, I brought the 4-wheeler with the little wagon. Calf was down in a ravine and I was petrified that he was going to tip the tractor over getting down to her, but he didn't. He attached the hip-thingy to her hip bones and lifted her out of there and hoisted her onto the cart and I brought her back here. Then after all that she died that night. Well, I guess you can't save them all. On Wed evening our bull calf-buyer called and said she wasn't going to be able to buy them any more. So that kind of leaves us ha...

Not much time on the computer today as there have been thunderstorms coming through off and on. Will post more tomorrow....maybe.

Hubby was on a roll last night in the milk barn giving me more of these country sayings. More chicken sayings: * Couldn't afford a setting hen. (Something you say about someone who brags about how much they have or what all they are going to do with their money.) * Scarce as hen's teeth. (This is a pretty common saying, I think) * I'd go scratch (insert expletive-if you are of that bent) with the chickens before I went back to that job. On being stingy: * Tight as bark on a tree * So tight his hindend (change to your choice of expletive) would hold coal oil (kerosene I believe) In general: * So sour it'd make a pig squeal. * It'd stink a dog off a gut wagon. * So spoiled that salt wouldn't save her. (About kids in general.) Here is a copy of my response to a comment someone left yesterday on my blind calf blog post from back in August: Iris-no we didn't treat the calf for anything for the blindness; just took the wait and see response. Really, I don't ...

OK, so this isn't of hubby's equipment in these pics, but hubby found them on Heavy Equipment Forums and was fascinated by them. Apparently this is how they unload coal from railroad coal cars. There were several other pictures in the series between these two positions, but I don't want to take time to post them all. It looks pretty freaky to me. In the forum discussion they were saying that the backhoe is modified specifically to do this type of job. The sick calves are still holding in there, though we don't know for how long. In one comment C stated as how it seemed they lose all the male calves. In yet another forum on Homesteading Today, they have had discussions about how it is always the male calves that seem to die. Some folks believe that the females are just stronger than the males, some say it depends on the sire and some say it is just the luck of the draw. I dunno. We seem to have them both die equally on us. Which isn't to say we have a hig...

Dear Everyone, OK. This NaBloPoMo is fun, but it's getting to where I don't know what to post anymore. I remember way back in my jail employment days someone passed out this fictitious letter from a kid to his parents while he was at camp; he goes on to say that the camp leader was on parole and it went on from there. Pretty sick humor, but you've got to understand that after you have worked at a jail for any length of time your humor starts to really warp; like really, REALLY badly. Anyone who's worked there can testify to that. But I won't look it up and post it because I don't want to freak anyone out. So for this letter I will say that this AM hubby got out the tiller and tilled up the garden beds. Then we planted our onions, 2 kinds of radishes and ummm...3 kinds of lettuce I believe. the end

Today is a nice spring day; sunny, warm but not too hot and just enough breeze to be nice. Church was good today. Hey, the Sheriff and his family were back. They came on Easter Sunday. I was uncharitable enough to remark that it's election year; of course they'd come to church. But maybe that was rude and untrue. Time will tell. Our attendance is up quite a bit overall at any rate and that is good. Tomorrow we are going to try and plant some things in the garden; onions, radishes and lettuce. Hopefully the heavy rains they are calling for later on in the week will not manifest and wash everything out. Then, of course, when we have storms in spring it generally means high winds and possible funnel clouds. *sigh* We have a couple of sick calves. One has hoof rot, we think, she is one of the larger calves and has been down for at least a week, closing in on two weeks, I believe. She is on her side now, so it's pretty much a sure thing; calf number 89 is coyote bait...

Here's another letter for today as well. This goes to Amrita in India from Yesu Garden-see link at left-who sent me my very first blogging award! Dear Amrita, Thank you very much for the lovely garland award! I appreciate the thought and friendship behind it. It means so much to me to be able to make new friends in Christ from all over the world. God bless you for your friendship! This is how she described the award: Here is an Indian ethnic award I created. The "I Garland You Award" Garland holds special significance in India. People are garlanded as a sign of honor, respect, welcome, love and friendship. Garlands are used at weddings, welcome ceremonies and social and religious occasions. Some people make garlands of real bank notes, usually for weddings to flaunt their wealth.

This letter goes out to my long-time snail mail pen-pal in the Ukraine. Dear Victoria, Thank you so very much for the lovely quilt you made and mailed to Ellen for her first birthday! I am so touched by your thoughtfulness and generosity. We all appreciate it so much. I know it will be something Ellen will treasure all of her life. It must have taken hours and hours to piece all of those little blocks together. My grandmother used to make numerous quilts and someday I hope to get a sewing machine and do the same thing. They are a lasting testament of love. Thank you again!

Dear Friends, The past couple of days have been busy and frought with ups and downs. On Wednesday evenings I teach the teen class at church; a challenge at best, but one I enjoy as you never know what they will say. Three weeks ago a couple of students actually LEARNED something: Jesus had a brother! (And perhaps other siblings.) It was funny to see the lightbulbs go on. This past Wed evening we ended up having a counseling session on a subject that didn't have to do with the lesson I had prepared, which was great as that is what I am there for. But this wasn't any light subject brought up and by the end I was more exhausted than if I had chased errant heifers around all day. Thursday, yesterday, hubby and I moved 18 heifers to their summer home in a town just NW ( I think, I am not too hot with directions ) of us. We have a field out there for their spring/summer home. This means hubby will be shuttling feed back and forth to them on his motorcycle and I will only have ...

Here is a copy of the notice I gave to my previous employment before I came to Missouri. Upon leaving a job I have always (with one exception) tried to be creative with my parting words. (Ummm...names have been changed to protect the innocent.) September 20, 2004 Her kind and gentle grace, the Lady Rebecca; to their estimable and honorable graces; the Lady Hannah and the Lady Leonora: Greetings, It is with both great joy and deep sorrow that I take pen in hand and scribe to you these few and final lines; joy for that I stand upon the threshold of a new Adventure awaiting, sorrow that I must now take my leave of this Esteemed Establishment; the County Sheriff’s Office. I laud the day, the Sixteenth of March, in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Eight, when I did stumble upon this most Gainful and Enjoyable Employment, and I am honored to have been able to bask in your Gracious Presences...

OK. Here we go with a letter for NaBloPoMo. Not fictitious, but something that has been at the back of my mind since Ellen was born. (This pic was taken 3 days before her first birthday.) Dear Ellen, You aren't walking yet, you are just too cautious, but I am just as glad because I am not ready for the worries that will come when you do start to walk. (Ellen, please leave the computer plugged in, I am trying to blog here...) There are so many dangers you can get into here on the dairy, it just isn't funny. There is the pond just outside the back door; not 100 yards away and I know you can just zip under the barbed wire fence in a second. There are any number of leaf piles around the woods, potential copperhead nests. Not to mention the stray copperhead crawling through on occasion. There's also the highway, 55 MPH, not 100 yards from the front of the house. (Ellen, please get out of the DVD/CD cabinet, you keep opening them up and taking the disks and labels out an...

No, we didn't get blown away to a different state yesterday; though we came close I guess. They said there was "rotation" in the clouds overhead, but nothing touched down in our area. I guess it was pretty bad in the town that is WEST of us, not east as I said in previous post. About 20 houses were flattened, according to one account we heard, and 4 business were destroyed. In the bigger town east of us a school bus was turned over; only the driver and an aid were on it. No one was injured. So far we haven't heard of anyone having been killed locally, but that may have changed since last night. At any rate it was pretty bad, no matter what. We keep finding pieces of vinyl siding and papers and things around the place. The power went off last night right when I was going to fix supper, so I had raw meat for meatballs sitting around. I put it in the fridge, but cleanup didn't happen for awhile. We had tuna sandwiches. The power stayed off until after the usu...